Vince Cable will have to be fleet of foot over tuition fees

It was a canny move by David Cameron to put everyone's favourite quick-stepping MP in charge of sorting out tuition fees.

The Business Secretary has joined the rare breed of politicians who are liked by the public — and are known primarily by their first names, rather than being cursed by their last.

But Vince Cable will need superhuman charm and fleetness of foot when he has to decide later this year whether — or more likely how — students will be forced to pay more for their degrees. The reason is that he is a Liberal Democrat. Like his party colleagues, he has campaigned for the abolition of university tuition fees.

Both Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg recognised the potential for fees to derail the Coalition in the same way that the policy nearly cost Tony Blair his massive Commons majority when the current charges were introduced.

They have promised that Lib-Dem MPs will be free to abstain in any Commons vote on the issue.

Mr Cable has set out a Swiftian "modest" proposal for a graduate tax, whereby top City bankers and lawyers will pay more because they earn more from their degrees.

Mr Cable has won a cautious welcome from the National Union of Students. But the real test will come in the Commons — and for the Lib-Dem backbenchers at the ballot box in the next general election.